Take Me Home
by Wings II
Summary: I realized when I wrote 'What I'll Never Do Again' that I would need to write a follow-up. Here it is, in all its out-of-character, AU glory.


One hundred years following the Apocalypse that wasn't, Crowley stood on a lush rust-orange lawn. The grass wasn't dying; plants in this sector of Alpha Centauri just weren't green. It had taken him a while to get used to this, but now, a century later, he didn't really mind.

To compensate for the lack of greenery, Crowley had painted the front door a lustrous forest green. It sort of helped, but the paint job stuck out like a sore thumb against the silver sky. At least Crowley's little house was the most beautiful in Alpha Centauri.

He took off his sunglasses for a moment to rub his tired eyes. The people here had never seen their true color, nor were they ever going to. It would be a little much for them, Crowley thought.

Today was going to be a strange day, he reflected as he went back inside and sat at his desk upstairs. What with Earth being gone—as we know, this reckoning was inaccurate, but Crowley wasn't aware of this yet—his only feasible destination was Heaven.

For perhaps the first time in his life, he found himself struggling to determine what to say once he got there. He assumed the security would be a bit too tight for him to be able to waltz in and call, "Aziraphale! Where are you? It's me, the idiot who said he would never think about you again! Except I ended up building a house for you! Want to see it?" And, of course, there would have to be an apology. Crowley wasn't very good at those, but he was going to have to deal with it. He'd slighted Aziraphale, and there was no other way to heal the wounds he figured that had left.

With a shaky semblance of a plan in his mind, Crowley headed to Heaven.

* * *

Unlike the pocket-dimension Alpha Centauri that Crowley now called home—a pocket he'd stumbled upon by accident, then realized was better than the alternative—Heaven was utterly unprotected against unexpected visitors. This made approximately no sense to Crowley, considering how much time and energy he had spent sealing off his little pocket of the universe. He could only infer that Heaven had quite thoroughly smashed the forces of Hell and Earth alike in the Apocalypse, and so thought they were clear of all danger.

They were not, however, clear of Crowley.

He did exactly what he thought he wouldn't be able to do. Upon sauntering into Heaven, he cornered the first important-looking angel he could find (who had the decency to look both scared shitless and utterly confused as to why that was), and growled, "Bring me Aziraphale." When the angel didn't immediately respond, Crowley cleared his throat and added, "If you can't do that, you pathetic little worm, bring me _to _him."

"I—yes. Follow me." The flustered angel led Crowley across the bright white expanse of God's lobby with the uncertainty of a toddler having just learned to walk. Several small groups of angels gave them a passing glance before returning to their conversations, never addressing either Crowley or the angel leading him. It was all quite strange, but Crowley elected not to ask questions. He'd learn a whole bunch of things he didn't want to know.

The light dimmed so gradually Crowley didn't notice until his surrounds held only the faint glow of twilight. He had the overwhelming sense that he and the angel had just entered a dungeon—albeit one at the same elevation as the rest of the place—and he couldn't have been further from wrong.

This was the hell of Heaven, and deep within its bowels, confined to an eight-by-eight cell, was Aziraphale.

He was asleep—or appeared to be asleep—on a cot, shivering under a thin white sheet. The only other furniture in the cell was a desk covered in papers. On one of them laid a fountain pen whose ink had leaked into a dark purple puddle. Crowley moved to reach through the bars and shift the pen, but the angel knocked his hand away. "If your skin brushes against those bars for even a fraction of a second, you will experience the worst agony you have ever felt in your life," they said evenly. "I suggest staying away."

At this, Aziraphale stirred. His eyes bored holes through Crowley's skull, and Crowley found himself wanting to turn his head.

Without warning, the bars began to sink into the floor, detaching from the ceiling and disappearing into a hatch. "I give you freedom," said the angel, who had never introduced themselves. "This freedom," they added, "is restricted. Should you, Aziraphale, attempt to leave the boundaries of your room, you will be immediately discorporated. Your friend is free to cross the threshold in either direction." The word 'friend' was pronounced with unbridled disdain, and Crowley's nostrils flared in reaction.

The angel turned and left. After taking a few steps, they simply disappeared.

"Lazy bum," Crowley muttered. "Teleporting a tenth of a kilometer just so they don't have to walk it."

"No," Aziraphale replied, his voice hoarse from disuse. "Sandriel is going to Metatron. They will report your presence and keep a close eye on you—on us—for as long as you're here."

"Lot longer than a tenth of a kilometer, then?"

Aziraphale nodded. "What do you want?" he asked.

Crowley took off his sunglasses to reveal wells of tears in his golden eyes. Softly, he said, "I want to take you home."

"You can't." He stood and Crowley realized how thin the angel was now—so thin it worried him. Circles as dark as the puddle of ink on the desk dominated his angular face, and the eyes above them lacked their signature sparkle. Aziraphale looked deathly ill, and his limp, greasy hair only drove that impression further home. A breeze could have knocked him back onto his bed.

Guilt suffocated him as he examined Aziraphale. "Yes, I can," he replied, but even though it was true, it sounded hollow, like a promise that could never be made. "Just—just hold my hand, and I'll take you home."

When Aziraphale broke the long silence that followed, his voice trembled with rage. "You left me. _You _let this happen. I relied on you for too long, and the time I needed you most, you were _gone,_ and I didn't know what to do. You used to solve all my problems in the nick of time, but where were you when my entire species turned on me? That's right—you weren't even on this _planet_. If you think I'll waltz out of here with you, you're wrong. We'll be caught, and we'll both meet the fate we've tried so hard to avoid."

"So what?" Crowley retorted. "We discorporate. Big deal. Life has to catch up to us eventually." He took a step, and with it crossed into Aziraphale's cell. The angel stared him down as he approached, but didn't say a word.

"I built you a house," the demon whispered. "Well—I built us a house. None of these idiots will ever be able to find it. It … it took me fifty years to make the forcefield around the place. You'll love it there. It's beautiful, and it's safe." He knew he was tripping over his words as he straggled from disjointed subject to disjointed subject, but the order didn't matter. He just needed to say it all. "I found a little blip in the universe. A little pocket. I didn't even know it was there; I only found it by mistake. Now it's hidden—nobody can find it unless they're looking for it. I—"

Aziraphale cut him off by tucking a strand of his hair behind his ear. This hadn't been intended to interrupt him, but it rendered Crowley speechless for a moment.

"Why?" asked Aziraphale, and the tears Crowley had managed to hold back earlier spilled down his cheeks.

"Because I never stopped thinking about you! That's why! I—I didn't know your own people would do this to you! I thought we could fuck off to Alpha Centauri together once I was done!" His voice broke like a glass dropped onto a stone floor. "I—I thought you knew I would come back …"

"You should be very thankful that we've gone centuries without seeing each other before. On the one hand, a hundred years is nothing. But on the other … on the other, it's eternity. You made a decision I should have made before time was up, Crowley. I can't fault you for that." Aziraphale sat down heavily and leaned forward with his face in his hands.

Not to be thwarted, Crowley sat on the floor between Aziraphale's feet and pried the angel's hands away. "Look at me," he said. "Look at me as I tell you I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I made the wrong choice, and that I was too chickenshit to admit it until now. I'm sorry I didn't take you with me, and that I left you the way I did. I was selfish, and callous, and … I still love you, angel. I'm so sorry."

Aziraphale reached down and took Crowley's hands in his. "Take me home," he whispered. "Please."


End file.
